Introduction

These release notes for Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (Bionic Beaver) provide an overview of the release and document the known issues with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and its flavors. For details of the changes applied since 18.04, please see the 18.04.1 change summary. The release notes for 18.04 are available as well.

Support lifespan

The 'main' archive of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will be supported for 5 years until April 2023. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will be supported for 5 years for Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, and Ubuntu Core. Ubuntu Studio 18.04 will be supported for 9 months. All other flavors will be supported for 3 years.

Upgrading from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or 17.10

Set the "Notify me of a new Ubuntu version" drop down menu to "For any new version" if you are using 16.04 LTS; set it to "For long-term support versions" if you are using 17.10.

Press Alt+F2 and type update-manager -c into the command box.

Update Manager should open up and tell you that Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is now available.

If not you can run /usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release-gtk

Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

To upgrade on a server system:

Install update-manager-core if it is not already installed.

Make sure the Prompt line in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades is set to 'normal' if you want non-LTS upgrades, or 'lts' if you only want LTS upgrades.

Launch the upgrade tool with the command sudo do-release-upgrade

Follow the on-screen instructions.

Note that the server upgrade will use GNU screen and automatically re-attach in case of dropped connection problems.

There are no offline upgrade options for Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server. Please ensure you have network connectivity to one of the official mirrors or to a locally accessible mirror and follow the instructions above.

New features in 18.04

32-bit PowerPC Support Dropped

The powerpc port is not included in the 18.04 release. See announcement for details.

ppc64el support support continues as previously.

Updated Packages

Linux kernel 4.15

Ubuntu 18.04 ships with a v4.15 based Linux kernel, enabling the latest hardware and peripherals available from IBM, Intel, and others. The 18.04 kernel delivers new features inherited from upstream, including:

CPU controller for the cgroup v2 interface

AMD secure memory encryption support

The latest MD driver with software RAID enhancements

Improved power management for systems with SATA Link Power Management

We also see notable Ubuntu specific achievements with:

Linux security module stacking support

Support for signing of POWER host and NV kernels

Backport improved support for IBM and Intel hardware from Linux 4.16

OpenJDK

As of 18.04 release, OpenJDK 10 is the default JRE/JDK. Once OpenJDK 11 reaches GA in September 2018, it will become the default in 18.04.

OpenJDK 8 has moved to universe and will remain available there for the life of 18.04, to provide migration time for packages, custom applications, or scripts that can't be build with OpenJDK 10 or 11. OpenJDK 8 will be updated in 18.04 until Ubuntu 16.04 LTS reaches EOL in April 2021.

Security Improvements

In Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, gcc is now set to default to compile applications as position independent executables (PIE) as well as with immediate binding, to make more effective use of Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR). All packages in main have been rebuilt to take advantage of this, with a few exceptions.

bolt and thunderbolt-tools have been promoted to main to provide security controls for Thunderbolt devices.

Default CIFS/SMB protocol version change in CIFS mounts

Since 17.10, the default SMB protocol used when mounting remote CIFS filesystems via mount.cifs (from the cifs-utils package) changed to 2.1 or higher, depending on what is negotiated with the server. If no version is specified when mounting such a remote share, the following will be logged:

No dialect specified on mount. Default has changed to a more secure dialect, SMB2.1 or later (e.g. SMB3),
from CIFS (SMB1). To use the less secure SMB1 dialect to access old servers which do not support SMB3
(or SMB2.1) specify vers=1.0 on mount.

Should you encounter compatibility issues, like #1764778 or #1572132, please specify vers=1.0 when mounting the share and please file a bug if that fixes the problem for you.

Improved UEFI Secure Boot handling for the use of third-party modules

Ubuntu now allows you to generate a signing key when needed, as you install third-party (DKMS) modules. On install of a DKMS package, you will be prompted to enter a password that is used to enroll a signing key (an X509 certificate) that will then be used to sign the new kernel modules. The prompts will allow you to enter the same password twice, and describe the steps needed to enroll the new key at the next reboot. For more information, see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UEFI/SecureBoot/DKMS.

Network configuration

New since 17.10

New since 16.04 LTS

The default DNS resolver is systemd-resolved.

ifupdown has been deprecated in favor of netplan.io and is no longer present on new installs. The installer will generate a configuration file for netplan.io in the /etc/netplan directory. This netplan.io configuration in turn renders backend-specific configuration via either systemd-networkd or NetworkManager. Desktop users will see their system fully managed via NetworkManager as it has been the case in previous releases. Server users will now see their network devices managed via systemd-networkd. This only applies to new installations.

Given that ifupdown is no longer installed by default, the commands: ifup and ifdown are also unavailable. Please use the ip command to achieve similar functionality, specifically ip link set $device up and ip link set $device down.

The networkctl command is now available for users to see a summary of network devices. networkctl status will display the current global state of IP addresses on the system. networkctl status $device displays details specific to a network device.

The ifupdown package remains available and supported in Ubuntu main for users that find netplan does not currently meet their networking needs.

For more information about netplan.io, please refer to the manual page using the man 5 netplan command or visit https://netplan.io/.

Scripts in /etc/network/ifup.d and /etc/network/ifdown.d no longer work in this new configuration. For the systemd-networkd backend, similar scripts can be added into subdirectories of /usr/lib/networkd-dispatcher (dormant.d, no-carrier.d, off.d, routable.d), if networkd-dispatcher is installed. Later on, custom scripts can be placed in /etc/networkd-dispatcher and potentially also override the ones in /usr/lib.

Other base system changes since 16.04 LTS

For new installs, a swap file will be used by default instead of a swap partition.

Python 2 is no longer installed by default. Python 3 has been updated to 3.6. This is the last LTS release to include Python 2 in main.

The installer no longer offers the encrypted home option using ecryptfs-utils. It is recommended to use full-disk encryption instead for this release. (1756840)

OpenSSH now refuses to use RSA keys smaller than 1024 bits. ssh-keygen -l -f /path/to/key.pub can report the length of a key.

Ubuntu Desktop

New since 17.10

X is the default display server. Wayland is provided as a Technical Preview and is expected to be the default display server in 20.04 LTS. To try it out, just choose Ubuntu on Wayland from the cog on the log in screen. X.org logs may now be found at ~/.local/share/xorg

The installer offers a minimal install option for a basic desktop environment with a web browser and core system utilities. Many official 18.04 desktop flavors are using this new feature too!

Apps provided by GNOME have been updated to 3.28. For more details about GNOME 3.28, see their Release Notes.

Emoji now show in color in most apps. Keyboard shortcuts for the emoji input chooser are Ctrl+. or Ctrl+;

Calendar now supports weather forecasts.

Some utilities have been switched to the snap format for new installs (Calculator, Characters, Logs, and System Monitor). Snap apps provide better isolation which allows them to be upgraded to new stable releases during the LTS lifecycle.

The Characters app replaces the older Character Map by default.

The Ubuntu Software app allows easy switching between different channels for Snap apps.

The To Do app has been added to the default normal install.

spice-vdagent is pre-installed for better performance for Spice clients such as the GNOME Boxes app.

The right-click method for touchpads without physical buttons has changed to a two-finger click instead of clicking in the bottom right of the touchpad. You can use the GNOME Tweaks app (not installed by default) to change this setting.

Although libinput is the default driver for mice and touchpads, it is now possible to use the synaptics driver with the Settings app. Support for the synaptics driver will be dropped in a future Ubuntu release.

Computers will automatically suspend after 20 minutes of inactivity while on battery power.

System Log has been replaced by Logs, an app to view logs from the systemd journal.

Many GNOME apps now have a Keyboard Shortcuts popup available in the app menu.

gconf is no longer installed by default since it has long been superseded by gsettings. Note that statistics and preferences for the Aisleriot card games will be reset when upgrading from 16.04 LTS or 16.10. gconf will be removed from the Ubuntu package archives in a future Ubuntu release.

The Ubuntu GNOME flavor has been discontinued. If you are using Ubuntu GNOME, you will be upgraded to Ubuntu. Choose the Ubuntu session from the cog on the login screen if you would like the default Ubuntu experience.

Install gnome-session then restart your computer and choose GNOME (or GNOME on Wayland) from the cog on the login screen if you would like to try a more upstream version of GNOME. If you'd like to also install more core apps, install the vanilla-gnome-desktop metapackage.

Ubuntu Server

New since 17.10

Server installer

The next generation Subiquity server installer, brings the comfortable live session and speedy install of Ubuntu Desktop to server users at last.

N.B., If you require multipath, full-disk encryption, or the ability to re-using existing partitions, you will want to continue to use the alternate installer which can be downloaded from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/18.04/release/As of 18.04.1, the Subiquity server installer now supports LVM, RAID, vlans, and bonds.

netplan.io

ifupdown has been deprecated in favor of netplan.io and is no longer present on new installs. Backend configuration on Ubuntu Server by default is provided by systemd-networkd.

QEMU 2.11.1

Among many other changes, fixes around Meltdown/Spectre are included. Since fully utilizing these mitigations needs more than just an upgrade, it is recommended to read details at the qemu.org blog post.

QEMU in Ubuntu 18.04 now has rdma support enabled as over the past year much unification in the rdma-core project has occured.

Migrations from former versions are supported just as usual. When upgrading it is always recommended to upgrade the machine types allowing guests to fully benefit from all the improvements and fixes of the most recent version.

libvirt 4.0

libvirt has been updated to version 4.0. See the upstream Changelogs for details since version 3.6 that was in Artful.

The packaging now builds libvirt storage drivers as pluggable libraries. This slims down the installation requirements but some drivers of less general interest will now be found in universe. (ex: gluster, sheepdog, zfs). On the other hand that means that a few formerly integrated features like rbd or zfs now might require you to install the package after upgrade e.g. in this case libvirt-daemon-driver-storage-zfs.

Open vSwitch 2.9

Chrony

In Ubuntu 18.04 chrony will replace ntpd as the recommended server for the NTP protocol. See the upstream changelog for an overview of recent changes as well as the FAQ which will help for smooth conversions from NTP.

The comparison among ntp servers by the chrony maintainers may interest some users looking to see a high level reason why this change was made. It does lack the rather new and not yet completely ready ntpsec, but otherwise is a fair analysis.

For simple time sync needs the base system already comes with systemd-timesyncd. Chrony is only needed to act as a time server or if you want the advertised more accurate and efficient syncing.

Going along with this change, ntpd has been demoted from main to universe. ntpd will continue to work but will only receive best-effort security maintenance. When upgrading to Ubuntu 18.04 it is highly recommended to migrate to chrony if you had set up ntpd before.

SSSD

SSSD was updated to version 1.16.x and its secrets service is now enabled. Previously it was disabled because it required the http-parser library which lived in Universe, but a successful MIR brought it to main so SSSD could link with it.

The defaults for autofs related configuration settings changed in SSSD 1.14.0 (see https://pagure.io/SSSD/sssd/issue/2858). If you are upgrading from SSSD 1.13 in Xenial, you might have to explicitly specify all ldap_autofs_* settings in your sssd.conf to match your data in LDAP.

Known issues

As is to be expected, with any release, there are some significant known bugs that users may run into with this release of Ubuntu 18.04. The ones we know about at this point (and some of the workarounds), are documented here so you don't need to spend time reporting these bugs again:

Desktop

Bluetooth audio devices cannot be used in the Greeter. This will cause issues for people using the accessibility features such as screenreaders at the login screen. Once logged in everything should work as expected.

Some admin utilities will not work with GNOME on Wayland since the apps have not been adapted to use PolicyKit to only use admin privileges for the specific functions needed. Also, some screenshot and screencast apps and all remote desktop server apps do not currently work on GNOME on Wayland. As a workaround, you can use the default Ubuntu session.

Exiting the live session may get stuck with a "A start job is running for " error. You may need to forcefully power off the computer if you see this. (1706939)

The Dock and Appindicator system extensions appear to be Off in tools like GNOME Tweaks. (They are on but cannot be disabled because they are system extensions for the Ubuntu session.) (1718850)

Tracker is not installed by default. When installed, you must log out and log back in for the tracker service to start (1697769)

Systems may fail to boot when connected over DisplayPort to an external screen, on NVidia graphics hardware such as the GTX970 chipset. (1723619)

When an external monitor is connected to a laptop, the login screen is only displayed on the internal one and in some case is not visible (1723025)

The warning dialog when a user force a UEFI installation does not respond to input event and the installation is then blocked at this stage (1724482) Avoid yourself some troubles and do not force a UEFI installation without a UEFI partition, grub-installer will fail anyway.

Doing an "Entire disk" installation over an existing LVM installation will fail because the installer selects the wrong boot device (1724417) Use custom partitioning instead and manually select the right boot device in the combo box.

Occasionally login may hang after an incorrect password (1766137). A workaround is to click cancel, click on your user and try again.

The installer can crash, especially noticeable on HiDPI screens where scaling has been applied (1751252). The workaround is to boot into the live session, change Settings > Devices > Displays > Scale = 100%, click Apply and proceed with installation by clicking "Install Ubuntu 18.04 LTS".

Server

Partitioning step allows to configure LVM across multiple devices without requiring to setup a separate /boot partition. This may lead to failure to install the bootloader at the end of the installation, and failures to boot the resultant installations. (1680101)

LVM configuration cannot be removed when volume groups with the same name are found during installation. Partitioner does not support installation when multiple conflicting/identical volume groups have been detected. For example reinstalling Ubuntu with LVM across multiple disk drives that had individual LVM installations of Ubuntu. As a workaround, please format disk drives prior to installation, or from the built in shell provided in the installer. (1679184)

cio_ignore blacklist is no longer active after installation, because not all install-time parameters, like cio_ignore (s390x), are propagated to the installed system. Workaround is to edit /etc/zipl.conf to apply these and re-run sudo zipl to update the IPL. (1571561)

Importing ssh keys from GitHub or Launchpad during the installation with the new subiquity server installer currently won't work. (#1766980)

Official flavours

The release notes for the official flavors can be found at the following links: